Let it go | Okay, good and the best.

Sophie Jordan – Reign of shadows. 2.5 out of 5. I won a review copy from Stories & Sweets. You know me and my love for fairytale retellings, so when I first spotted this book on Goodreads I knew I had to read it. I was excited when I started it. The beginning was interesting and set the world-building: Luna's parents, King and Queen of Relhok, were murdered by the evil chancellor the day of the eclipse. The world has been cloaked in darkness for 17 hours now. Only one hour, midlight, is save from the creatures that roam the world: Dwellers. Fowler is on the run from his family and is saved by Luna. He is ordered to take her with him to a place that is rumored to be free of Dwellers.

Luna had her moments. She is blind, but gifted with these some kind of superpowers that gave her unbelievable abilities. The author took it a little too far for my taste and I would have liked it more if she had toned it down. Luna is rash and she went back and forth between clever and downright stupid. Fowler gave me mixed feelings. He was too emotionless and harsh for my taste, I would have liked to see his softer sight earlier in the story. His 'unpredictable' twist was quite obvious from the beginning and might me sigh at how cliche it was. I was disappointed, but I think I'm willing to give the sequel a second chance.

Danielle L. Jensen – Warrior witch. 3 out of 5. Review copy from Netgalley.
The first book was really strong and I love how Stolen songbird changed the way I viewed trolls. Tristan and Cécile impressed me and I liked their chemistry. Hidden Huntress was a good sequel, especially because it was written from both of their point of views. While warrior witch was a solid conclusion to the overall series, it did not blow me away.

There was a change in Tristan/Cécile's dynamic that made me annoyed by both of them. Their chemistry suffered from their constant need to keep things a secret to keep each other safe and I just wish they talked more. The plot was a bit slow, with Cécile trying to make up for her mistake in the previous book, but the ending made up for it. I did not see that coming and I thought it was fitting.

Amy Tintera – Ruined. 4.5 out of 5. Review copy from Edelweiss.
I had a good experience with Tintera's previous Dystopian duology Reboot, so I had high expectations for this series despite some negative reviews on my Goodreads feed. Let me tell you this: I ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT. The 0.5 was taken off because the romance developed a little too fast for my taste, but Em and Cas were fantastic together. They start with a bit of a hate relationship and that's my favorite thing.

Em is the princess of Ruina. The Ruined are being hunted and killed, because people are afraid for their powers. At the same time, the Ruined are not innocent. She is looking for her capture sister, who is being held by the king who killed her parents. He happens to be the father from Prince Cas of Lera, engaged to princess Mary - and Em is portraying to be that girl. Cas doesn't want to get married, but he is surprised by Mary/Em.

The plot is quite basic, but the characters and how Tintera filled it with details made the story for me. Em was simply fabulous. This girl is ruthless, clever and strong. She made me laugh a couple of times, when she daydreams about ways to kill everyone in a room. Very resourceful. Cas was the typical good guy. He is open-minded and kind, nothing like his father. Tintera has a fantastic writing-style that easily sucks you into the story and I LOVED that horrible ending. It makes me want to pick up the sequel right away.

Monthly recap July '16 | Theme park, all the books & return to the hairdresser.

This post recaps my month: my personal life, all the books I’ve read & bought, movies and TV shows I’ve seen and links to posts that interest me.

This was a good eventful month!

The first thing that happened was going back to the hairdresser. Last time it did not turn out how I wanted it, so I got a refund and the opportunity to have it fixed at one of their other locations. It is PERFECT now. I will definitely return to that location in the future to get it touched up again, because I'm digging the purple :) 

The second fun thing is that I went to a theme park with my boyfriend, his brother + girlfriend and sister. I'm not into rollercoasters (I don't mind the height of the speed, but I dislike the feeling), but I had a great time nonetheless! It is a fairytale themed park, so there is enough to do and see for me. We also hunted down Pokemons together, which was fun. (Shout out to other members of Team blue :D)

I had two book club meetings, where we ate Indian food the first time and an amazing brownie, chocolate mousse and vanilla ice cream dessert the second time. I also had a sleep-over. My boyfriend was on a school trip for ten days, so my sister stayed over for two days and it was great! Quality time and a swoony movie. Tonight I'm going out for dinner with my parents, so this month is also filled with lots of good food.

I went shopping with my mother and sister, bought tons of clothes and then ordered some more (buying lots of dresses for vacation is a nice excuse, right?) I also received my order from RedBubble and I'm so enthusiastic about their stickers! Such good quality and I love their fast shipping.

I'm still in a blog slump and I am just taking my time. I might need to reconsider what I want for this blog. I'm slowing getting back into commenting though, so that is good news and writing about bullet journaling has helped a lot, so I'm definitely going to continue that. 

And my vacation started! Three weeks of freedom.

Review 261. Brittany Cavallaro – A Study in Charlotte.

Title: A study in Charlotte.
Author:  Brittany Cavallaro.
Pages:  321.
Published: March 1st 2016 by Katherine Tegen Books
Sort: First book in Charlotte Holmes.
Source: Edelweiss and publisher, thanks!

The last thing Jamie Watson wants is a rugby scholarship to Sherringford, a Connecticut prep school just an hour away from his estranged father. But that’s not the only complication: Sherringford is also home to Charlotte Holmes, the famous detective’s great-great-great-granddaughter, who has inherited not only Sherlock’s genius but also his volatile temperament. From everything Jamie has heard about Charlotte, it seems safer to admire her from afar. From the moment they meet, there’s a tense energy between them, and they seem more destined to be rivals than anything else. But when a Sherringford student dies under suspicious circumstances, ripped straight from the most terrifying of the Sherlock Holmes stories, Jamie can no longer afford to keep his distance. Jamie and Charlotte are being framed for murder, and only Charlotte can clear their names. But danger is mounting and nowhere is safe—and the only people they can trust are each other.

It was quite obvious in the beginning that I would not get along with this book. It's definitely a case of "it's me, not you" because this book has a lot to offer. For some reason though, I did not connect with the story, the characters or the writing.

Jamie Watson got a rugby scholarship to Sherringford, where Charlotte Holmes goes to school as well. The two of them meet and he is immediately impressed by her; Charlotte less. She likes to be by herself in her laboratory, but Jamie feels an attraction to her and the two of have to work together when they are being set up. A student dies under strange circumstances and they are both seen as suspects – and only Charlotte's intelligence can clear their names.

I liked the fact that Holmes is a girl now. She is smart, impulsive and confident, three trades I normally really like in a character. With Charlotte it was the opposite; I disliked her, could not connect with her and most of all, I had a hard time accepting her drugs abuse. She got on my nerves more often than I wished and even her hard times did not make me like her more.. The way she looks at life and treats certain situations just did not work for me.

I had the same with Jamie. He felt blank to me and I never had the feeling I was connected to him. There was no sparkle for me and the two lacked the chemistry I see in the TV show and movies. I guess it is because they only work together, because someone is trying to frame Charlotte and Jamie is pulled under as well. 

The way they put the clues together was kind of fun, but the overall mystery was not that exciting to me and the lack of emotions made this a failure for me.

Retelling July '16 | Inspiration for retellings.

Don't forget to tweet and Instagram with the hash-tag #fairytaleRC.

UPDATE  @ your name/blog name. This is your master post, like your challenge page.
REVIEW – book title @ your name/blog name.

I often see people comment about the fact that they are 'failing' this challenge, but I want to point out there is no failling. This challenge is all about having fun and simply reading books you enjoy; and if you don't feel like it, then don't do it. But, this got me thinking about the fact some people might get stuck on what books they have to read. So, here is a list with all kinds of retellings you might be in the mood for – and some that will be published at the end of this year.

Talk Bujo to Me | Creating your bulletjournal collections.

Reminder: I'm a newbie at this. I've been using my bulletjournal since April this year, so I'm still in the middle of figuring everything out. I just thought I would give you a look at my method.

Last time I talked about my step into the world of bulletjournaling and I gave a quick explanation about what this concept means. In one sentence: it is a flexible way to keep track of your life with the help of collections. And those collections are the topic that I want to talk about today, because they decide the structure of your bulletjournal.

To describe the meaning of a collection, I like to point out this quote from the bulletjournal page: collections are pages dedicated to related ideas, can take any form you need them to, and are not just limited to lists. They can be projects, illustrations, basically any kind of related content that you want to live outside of your daily journaling.

This means that you need to sit down and decide for yourself what matters to you; what you want to have in your bulletjournal to help you in your daily life. There are different collections that I see return across the bulletjournal community and I use them myself, because they are really useful for me.

1. I always start with a page to introduce the new month. This is a great way for me to separate the months when I flip through my bulletjournal. I also find it relazing to do, because I try to come up with new ways to decorate the page. This time I went with a flower wreath.



2. Then I draw a calendar for the entire month where I write down big events like birthdays, tasks I need to do somewhere that month, my goals and recap. Most of the times I decorate it with an inspirational/motivational quote. Lately I've been trying out color schemes, where I pick two colours that I will use on every page that month. It looks neat. July is purple with pink.



3. Then one of my favorite pages: a habit tracker. Here you can add anything you want to keep track of and whenever you do something during the day, you color in a square. At the end of the month you can see how many times you did a certain thing.



4. I'm trying out something new; a memory page, where I combine doodles and text to point out memorable things I did during the month. I combine this with the books I want to read and TV shows/movies I want to watch. A lot of times I don't finish the list, but it is fun to challenge myself.



5. Dailies. This is the part where you can really creative, because the ways you can use these dailies are endless. I'm still trying out different lay-outs and I love to switch up! Here are two examples of different lay-outs I've tried. The purpose is to fill these out with everything you have to do, in combination with the icons you choose in your key (I talked about this in the previous post)

So, there are the collections that return each month in my bulletjournal. What I love about this system is that you can always add more or take away the ones that don't work for you. It is up to you how you fill in your bulletjournal and how much decoration you use. There is no right or wrong way, because in the end it is basically a to-do list.

Other pages I have in my bulletjournal to give you an idea of all the things you can write down.
Challenges. I'm currently trying out two Instagram challenges called 'plan with me' and 'rock your handwriting' and it is fun! Here you can see the page where I set up the Plan with me challenge and a page where I did a prompt for rock your handwriting.

Wishlists and lists where I write down all the movies I NEED to see, books I NEED to read, random things I want to buy at some point, etc. Basically, I love making lists and this bulletjournal is the perfect way to keep them all together. Here is a wish list with books that will be published in the next months.


And random pages, like these two. One is for motivational purposes, the other simply to talk about my love for reading. I really like setting up these pages, because I get to practice different fonts and decorations.

So that is it for my lay-out! I have returning collections and then I fill in the rest with my love for lists and random ideas I want to collect.

Was this helpful? What lay-out do you use in your bulletjournal?

Next up: Different lay-outs you can use for your collections.

Review 260. Paula Stokes – Girl Against the Universe.

Title: Girl against the universe.
Author: Paula Stokes.
Pages:  400.
Published: May 17th 2016 by HarperTeen
Sort: Stand-alone.
Source: eARC on Edelweiss.
 

Maguire knows she’s bad luck. No matter how many charms she buys off the internet or good luck rituals she performs each morning, horrible things happen when Maguire is around. Like that time her brother, father, and uncle were all killed in a car crash—and Maguire walked away with barely a scratch. But then on her way out of her therapist’s office, she meets Jordy, an aspiring tennis star, who wants to help Maguire break her unlucky streak. Maguire knows that the best thing she can do for Jordy is to stay away, but staying away may be harder than she thought.

Rating:

I think we all know by now that I'm not a contemporary reader. There are a few books that I've tried in the past that worked for me and this is now officially one of them. I heard a lot of good things about Girl Against the Universe on Twitter, so I decided to get a copy from Edelweiss to give it a shot – and I am so happy I did! This book was the perfect mix between fluffy and emotional. It was never too heavy, but at the same time did not shy away from the reality of both Maguire's and Jordy's problems. The author managed to strike a good balance between a tougher story and a blossoming romance that all starts with an unlikely friendship. The overall story was inspiring.

Maguire has had her share of bad luck and she writes it all down in her notebook to prove she is cursed. One of the worst things that happened to her was surviving a car crash, while her father, brother and uncle died. Maguire is now afraid to cause harm to others, so she stays away from friendship and situations where she is surrounded by people.  Maguire is now in therapy and she wants to work to one important goal: learning to overcome her fear and fly in a plane to her family abroad. 

 
Jordy is an aspiring tennis star who is with the same therapist as Maguire. He has a hard time figuring out who he is and his parents push him in other directions than his heart. The two of them meet after one of Maguire's sessions and when she has to join a sport, she runs into him during a tennis try-out. The two of them start a special kind of friendship; they both desperately need each other.

I loved how Maguire developed throughout the story. We see a girl who is afraid of anything grow into the person she was meant to be. The fact that she was brave enough to conquer her fears inspired me, because sometimes I let fears hold me back. Making a check list to help her work towards her goal was such a good idea and I liked how Jordy helped her. His story showed that sometimes it's good to talk with someone else, even if your problem might not look that serious. He definitely showed a lot of improvement throughout the story, but Maguire was the highlight to me.

I liked their relationship and how it slowly transitions. It felt realistic and friends-to-more is one of my favorite things, right after banter and sass.

 If you like contemporary books with a bit more depth, this is the one for you.